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Sanctions are to stop the flow of money to the war machine that is currently indiscriminately killing civilians. What goes beyond the sanctions, like business

Sanctions are to stop the flow of money to the war machine that is currently indiscriminately killing civilians. What goes beyond the sanctions, like business withdrawals from Russia (Visa, MasterCard, Microsoft, McDonalds) is a business decision to mitigate a geopolitical risk. The management board does not want to be ”stained in blood” and is willing to give up on Russia than in any way be associated with Russian war propaganda. Furthermore it is likely that the current shareholders are going to lose the Russian business any case, due to nationalisation, credit defaults, oligarchs taking over, local mob bosses taking over, etc. Russia is a country run by thugs, the only law is Putin’s word and when thugs see an opportunity they will use it.

sega_sai 5y ago
I agree, and I support most of the sanctions and business withdrawals, especially when there is personnel and tax payed in Russia, but again as an example, if you are Russian opposition, you don't want to be hosted in Russia, as the hoster will take you down on government request, so you have to be hosted abroad. And now if the west just decides to terminate every contract from a Russian citizen, I'd say that'll hurt more the enemies of the government than not. But it's just my opinion, and you can't expect every business to make that kind of analysis.
- miohtama 5y ago
  The free flow of information is a tough question. The Russian opposition is literally killed in this point, and only opposition that can operate has left/is leaving Russian. The only free flow of information for Average Ivan is using Telegram in this point. People are so soaked in disinformation that they do not believe anything outside Kremlin’s evening news. And it will only get harder, as Putin wants to copy all the latest gadgets from Chinese firewall. I feel Chinese are happy to do some export business here.
alkonaut 5y ago
Broad sanctions have more purposes than the 2 primary ones (limit funds available for war and make life harder for leaders). Sanctions of the kind we see now will, not only as an unfortunate side effect, for example - disproportionately cause working age and educated people to leave the country causing brain drain and furthering the demographic crisis - lowering the risk/reward threshold for ordinary people to protest the regime. People with somewhat comfortable lives might not risk prison to protest the war. People who can’t eat or who lost their life savings in a year might. I agree that when consumer brands boycott Russia it’s likely mostly optics and fear of consumer boycott. Not much can be done about that. It just happens to align with and further the sanctions. It’s important that Russians are given international news, however. Cutting communications seems counter productive.
- deleted 5y ago
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sega_sai 5y ago

I agree, and I support most of the sanctions and business withdrawals, especially when there is personnel and tax payed in Russia, but again as an example, if you are Russian opposition, you don't want to be hosted in Russia, as the hoster will take you down on government request, so you have to be hosted abroad. And now if the west just decides to terminate every contract from a Russian citizen, I'd say that'll hurt more the enemies of the government than not. But it's just my opinion, and you can't expect every business to make that kind of analysis.

miohtama 5y ago
The free flow of information is a tough question. The Russian opposition is literally killed in this point, and only opposition that can operate has left/is leaving Russian. The only free flow of information for Average Ivan is using Telegram in this point. People are so soaked in disinformation that they do not believe anything outside Kremlin’s evening news. And it will only get harder, as Putin wants to copy all the latest gadgets from Chinese firewall. I feel Chinese are happy to do some export business here.

alkonaut 5y ago

Broad sanctions have more purposes than the 2 primary ones (limit funds available for war and make life harder for leaders). Sanctions of the kind we see now will, not only as an unfortunate side effect, for example - disproportionately cause working age and educated people to leave the country causing brain drain and furthering the demographic crisis - lowering the risk/reward threshold for ordinary people to protest the regime. People with somewhat comfortable lives might not risk prison to protest the war. People who can’t eat or who lost their life savings in a year might. I agree that when consumer brands boycott Russia it’s likely mostly optics and fear of consumer boycott. Not much can be done about that. It just happens to align with and further the sanctions. It’s important that Russians are given international news, however. Cutting communications seems counter productive.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]